Going back
by Lonneke
Summary: Buffy returns to Sunnydale after season two and makes peace with herself


Going back.

I'm the Slayer. 

It's a pretty short sentence, just a couple of words. But sometimes size really doesn't matter. Sometimes there's enough meaning in merely a few words. And there's plenty enough meaning in that tiny sentence.

What it means? Simply that I was a normal teenager once, just like my friends are now. Sure, they may think that they aren't normal, being a witch or a werewolf and things like that. But they're wrong. Cause most of the time they're still normal high school kids, worrying about tests, outfits, popularity, just like I used to. Little Miss Buffy: worshipped for my sense of fashion, begged by men who wanted to go out with me and object of everybody's jealousy. And I loved it. I loved all those people trying so hard to get my attention. Not that they got it, mind you, I thought many were too low for such a precious thing. How shallow I was.

Then one day he came: my first Watcher. And from that day on I was no longer little Miss Buffy. I became the Slayer. No longer the cute, yet shallow prom queen, but now someone with a goal, with responsibility. And someone who is nameless. I'm just the Slayer, like the Slayer before me and the Slayer before her. In a way, that's just as shallow.

But I refused to give up my name. I had to be the Slayer, yes, else my friends would die. But I wanted to be Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not just some fighting machine, but someone who actually had a life. And that was what I did. At day I went to classes to do everything but learning like everybody else and at night I would go out and hunt. Why couldn't I see that it was too good to be true? Why didn't I realise that it couldn't happen? Perhaps I did, but I just didn't want to accept it.

So I tried both. I studied, killed vampires, I shopped, killed a giant praying mantis, I hang out, killed a robot who was dating my mother, I gossiped about other people's relationships, killed a brain-stealing demon, I had my homework done by the nerd of the school and trapped a witch in a golden statue. Not necessarily in that order. And I was doing great. Sure, I missed a lot of lessons because of being the Slayer, my mother thinks I'm a rebellious kid from hell, I've put my friends in danger and oh yeah, I died once, but I got over all of that. I had my friends, my family, my comfort, my life to get me through the rough bits. And then a wonderful thing, which I cherish yet curse at the same time, happened. 

I fell in love. 

And for a moment I was in heaven. 

Of course we had our problems, hey, most couples do and I guess that when you're a Slayer whose dating a vampire, you're asking for it, but we didn't mind. It felled so right, how could it be wrong? I had forgotten that Destiny has something else in mind for me, that I wasn't supposed to love someone, that I was the Slayer. And just when I thought I had it all, when I thought that even though I was the Slayer, I had a life; then I lost everything. No, not just lost. I had to give up everything. And that is so much worse. Things weren't done to me, I had to do it myself. My friends, my love, I had to sacrifice it all for the good of the world, until I had nothing left, until there was just the Slayer. When I think about the fact that I had to kill my love and send him into Hell, simply because I am the Slayer and else everyone would've died, when I think about that… I don't even think I can do that. I try not to. It still hurts so much, so badly. And I'm afraid that the hurting will never stop.

I tried to have a life and I had to pay the price. And the price was so high, I just couldn't handle it anymore. If I couldn't have a life, fine, so be it, no life for Buffy then. I'm sure that would make the big guys up there, whoever they are, very happy. But I couldn't be the Slayer there anymore. Not in that place filled with memories of a time when I knew love, friendship, support. When I was happy. I simply couldn't be reminded all the time of what I had to give up. So I ran, I fled. Took the bus and didn't look back. Went to the place were all lost souls go: Los Angeles, the City of Angels. And yes, I get the irony of that.

I worked in that city as a waitress, making just enough money for food and to pay the rent of this shabby thing which was supposed to be my new home. And that's pretty much it. Not exciting, I know. But hey, I couldn't have a life, and I really didn't want to be the Slayer, so that was what I became. Nothing. Another nameless person in the big city. But there's a good side on being nobody: you'd have no more duties. No longer the life of a Slayer who had to fight and risk her life while the others were hanging out and having fun. No longer knowing that if you wouldn't go out tonight, people would die. There is after all only so much responsibility a girl can take.

And again, I should have known. I tried, I really did. Didn't think of my home, my friends, my duties, simply thought of nothing. But hey, I'm the Slayer, I'm not supposed to do that. Other things have been planned for me. That's why I was forced to realise who I was. I couldn't be nothing, simply because I'm not. I'm meant to be the Slayer, so I have to be it, whether I like it or not. Nobody can escape his Destiny.

I still don't know if what happened next was coincidence or the work of the big guys. Either way, they made me realise who I was, who I still am. Cause if I was walking at night and saw a homeless man, a nobody like me, been taken away by vampires, yes, I would have tried to stop them. I didn't try very hard and I sometimes gave up a bit too easy, but when you've been a Slayer for so many years, you simply can't stop fighting the baddies entirely. But make no mistake, I wasn't the Slayer. I was someone who occasionally staked a vampire when I stumbled upon one. I didn't hunt. I didn't really try to defeat evil. I didn't act like a Slayer. So sometimes I gave up on one of those homeless men. Tried to convince myself I did all I could, that I didn't indirectly murder him, he would have died anyway if I wasn't there. And being a nobody, I accepted that easily. Cause I didn't really care. How could you care about nothing?

So to make me care about people again, to make me become a Slayer, I would have to meet a somebody. And I did.

She used to be lost, like I was. Almost got herself killed in the past, but I managed to save her. I had forgotten all about her, but then I saw her again in the restaurant where I worked. She was very grateful for the last time and had mended her ways. She had a relationship, didn't have much money and her life probably still wasn't very great, but there was one important new aspect of her life: she was happy. She was in love, head over heels, and thoroughly enjoying it. I have to admit, I wasn't even jealous. Perhaps because at the time I firmly believed that love, like happiness, never lasts. And this time, I was right. Her boyfriend disappeared under very curious circumstances to say the least. When I found him, he was dead. And she wouldn't accept it. She was desperately clinging to her love, relying on me. I had saved her once, now she was begging me to help her again, to find her love. And I really wanted to be able to do that. To make her happy again, to make love last for a change. However I knew that he was dead and that like me, she had to let go of love. But she couldn't.

She went to the demons that had murdered him, ignorantly believing she'd be reunited with her love. I can't blame her. I probably would have done the same if I hadn't...seen…my loved one leave. 

And that's when I changed. I couldn't simply let her get killed. I knew her, knew the pain she went through. She was somebody. And I had to save her. Not because I am the Slayer, not because of my duties, but because she needed me, because I cared.

That's why I saved her. But when she was free again, she had changed. That was to be expected, I know. She wasn't happy anymore of course, but she accepted the loss of her love, after being through Hell, and moved on with her life. Just like me. Only difference is that she literally went through Hell and the Hell I lived in was completely my own. But thanks to her and I went back to my life, to who I am, just as she did. I'm not only the Slayer now, not merely someone who fights evil, but someone who cares about the innocent as well, who helps people, make them happy. And that kind of life is good enough for me.

But I knew I couldn't be like that in LA. The city isn't my thing, evil has a different form there. I had to go back to the place were I was meant to be: Sunnydale, my home, in order to become who I'm meant to be.

And that's what I'm doing right now. Sitting on the bus, staring out of the window but not really paying attention to what I see. I haven't a clue on how my life will be. Whether or not I'll have friends and a family again. But not love, I gave that one up. However, I will try to have at least some part of my life back, to become me again. It's scary and I'm happy yet afraid at the same time to see everybody again. I'll just wait and see how everything goes. But I'm not going to run again, I've had enough of that. I want to be somebody again, want to help people who need me. I will fight the forces of darkness once again, risking my life every night while having almost no social life. But that's okay now, I've accepted it. It's who I am and I can't run from that. No matter how far I go away, you just can't hide from yourself. 

I am the Slayer. It is my Destiny.


End file.
